Take Me Home

A Novel

Willa Award

About the Book

“Take Me Home is a riveting novel of two heroic people attempting to transcend the prejudices of their time and place. . . . Skillful artistry and empathy.” —Ron Rash, author of Serena and One Foot in Eden

“Leung’s writing is exquisite, deceptively plain, deeply felt and spiritually high, with dead-on depictions of the world as it is.” —San Francisco Chronicle

From Brian Leung, author of Lost Men and World Famous Love Acts (winner of both the Asian American Literary Award and the Mary McCarthy Prize in Short Fiction) comes a story of forbidden friendship in an Old West mining town. Set amidst the racial tensions surrounding the Rock Springs Massacre, Take Me Home makes the desperate coal mine culture of Wyoming come alive. Readers of Annie Dillard and Annie Proulx will thrill for the latest book by this exciting voice in American literature.

Book Description

Adele "Addie" Maine is returning to Dire, Wyoming, forty years after the deadly events that drove her away from her husband without a word.

Years earlier, when Addie first heads West to stay with her brother Tommy, she is wary of the Chinese working alongside the white men in the local coal mines. But when Tommy falters at homesteading and the mine becomes their only path, Addie's eyes are opened through her association with one Chinese man in particular, Wing Lee—and a bond forms between them that is impossible and forbidden, even in a territory where nearly everyone is an immigrant. Together, Addie and Wing harbor a secret, and when racial tensions escalate to a combustion point, Addie will face a devastating choice between fighting for what is right . . . and survival.

Take Me Home is a searing, redemptive novel that explores justice in a time of violence, and the sweeping landscape between friendship and love.

Educator and Librarian Resources

Critical Praise

“Leung uses the discord between whites and Asians in the West of the 1880s to give his novel both depth and a compelling twist.” —

“A sweeping, action-packed novel.” —

“Take Me Home is a riveting novel of two heroic people attempting to transcend the prejudices of their time and place. Through Leung’s skillful artistry and empathy, we see the worst aspects of humanity, but we also see the best.” —

“Heartfelt. . . . Leung’s writing is so clear and lovely and his characters are so well-realized . . . The character of Wing speaks eloquently for thousands of Chinese miners whose voices are lost to history.” —

“Every now and then, a small, quiet, well-crafted novel is just what the doctor ordered. . . . Take Me Home by Brian Leung fits the bill.” —

“Brian Leung’s exquisitely crafted novel Take Me Home is a story of the Old West for investigative readers, a necessary and cautionary tale spun from the lessons of real history. . . . [His] lyric gifts as a novelist bring the deftly plotted story alive.” —

“Leung wisely narrows his plot into a tightly woven and unusual love story. . . . [His] writing, in fact, has a train-like rhythm that will keep any reader turning the page to see what the journey home looks like.” —

“Brian Leung captures the haunting landscape, harsh conditions, and abundant racism of late 19th century Wyoming, and he also leaves the reader with the hope that, while amends can never be made for past cruelties, the future may be somewhat brighter.” —

“The coal mine culture of Wyoming comes alive in this story of forbidden friendship.” —

“A powerful story about friendship, love, and eventual triumph, set against the dramatic backdrop of 1880s Wyoming. It is thought-provoking, crisply written, and compulsively readable.” —

“An engaging and beguiling novel about prejudice, relationships and the possibilities of redemption.” —

“A fascinating depiction of life, love, and racial strife in the mining camps of the 19th-century American West. . . . In this work of insight and sensitivity, Leung succinctly portrays how Chinese miners of the era were resented and what happened to people who crossed the racial barrier.” —

“Take Me Home is beautiful. The language of Brian Leung’s novel is poetic and surprising and yet still manages to capture the coarseness, the beardedness of Rock Springs, Wyoming. It’s a smart book that offers an important window into the West and therefore the American story.” —

“Take Me Home is very much about humanity--very much about our need to love, no matter how forbidden. Lovers of history and heroines will want to devour this book.” —

“Brian Leung’s Take Me Home is powerfully imagined. . . . [His] pristine prose recounts a time of tough women dealing with the loneliness of the Wyoming plains and the unforgiving landscape of an 1880s coal-mining town, a time when we were all immigrants in search of a place we could call home.” —

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